It's Our River: Commonwealth of Virginia v. Maryland, Take 1

In
1946 legislative researcher Carl Everstine estimated that roughly 62%of
the commercial oyster catch from the 1944-45 season had been harvested
illegally, with the majority of the illegal dredging attributed to Virginia
watermen. The
problem stemmed from an unwieldy governance structure in place since the 18th
century. In the 1940s the Potomac was still governed by the Compact of 1785,
the product of laborious negotiations between Virginia and Maryland over fishing
and passage rights in the river. The Compact of 1785
effectively gave Virginia free and equal rights to the Potomac fisheries while upholding
Maryland's title to the river under the 1632 charter Charles I granted to Lord
Baltimore. More significantly, it declared that any river-related legislation
must be passed by both states.

In
1957, Maryland Delegate J. Frank Raley pushed Maryland to abrogate the Compact
altogether,a move which prompted Virginia to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The result was the Potomac River Compact of 1958, which grew out of a bi-state commission
to develop a new agreement between Maryland and Virginia.

Virginia
had little trouble passing the new Potomac River Compact, but ratification was
a much more difficult process for Marylanders, some of whom accused Raley of
''giving the river away." One of the most vocal against the new Potomac
River Compact was Walter Dorsey, state's attorney for St. Mary's County from
1954 to 1958 and a state senator from 1959 to 1962. Believing that the 1958
Compact put "too much power in the hands of
too few," Dorsey forced the matter to a referendum and lost. The
1958 Compact passed state-wide, with St. Mary's County voting overwhelmingly
against it, 4,245 to 1,147.

- Victoria ]ones

As told by Walter Dorsey to Bo Knutson

Captain
Chester Cullison was in charge of the Tidewater Fisheries Department, which is
now the Department of Natural Resources, had local people working with him--a
fellow named Wood from down at Ridge and the Pratt boys. But Captain Chester
was pretty tough, and when I was State's attorney, the watermen used to come to
me and say, “Walter, we can't make a living with Captain Chester, you gotta get
rid of him, you gotta do something.” But there was nothing I could
do about it. He was the captain, he's gonna do what he wants. So finally
Captain Chester retired, and that's when they started bringing the Eastern Shore
men in to take his place. And he hadn't been gone a month before the watermen
came and said, “Walter, what can we do to get Captain Chester back? We can't
live with these damn Eastern Shore men.” (Laughs)

You talk
about Oyster Wars and my recollection is there weren't any
Oyster Wars. They were a figment of the news media
trying to justify the Potomac River Compact,
trying to say, “Oh you got all these terrible
Oyster Wars down in St. Mary's and Charles County.”
There may have been some isolated shots fired by police officers, but
whatever shooting was done was probably when the watermen
were trying to elude the police. A lot of dredge boats from Virginia came out
of Colonial Beach and anchored here. They dredged
oysters and they wouldn't stop, and the police may have fired at them, but
I don't think it was much of them firing back.
The Virginians would come in packs, and when they
saw the police, they'd all run!

I lived
right over in the Seventh District in ‘57, ‘58, and ‘59--right on the Potomac River,
on Colton's Point, across from Blackistone Island. There was no Oyster War going
on, believe me. I wasn't out there on the front lines, but I would have known
about it because I used to hear all the watermen's complaints. That's where the
watermen lived, based in the Seventh District, and they were down at my house
all the time complaining. They weren't complaining about being shot at by
police officers or being shot at by dredgers from Colonial Beach. Instead, they
were complaining about the dredgers themselves and asked
why Oyster Police Captain Chester Cullison didn't catch them. As far as enforcing
the laws, it was up to Maryland to enforce them; I never remember that there was
much enforcement by the State of Virginia. They may have had some police boats,
but I never saw one from Virginia. The dredgers would usually stay in the
tributaries, so they would be prosecuted in the Virginia courts if caught. We
prosecuted some Virginians here in these courts, but that was only when they
were actually caught and we could prove that they had a dredge on the boat. If
they were prosecuted in Virginia, they were given a slap on the wrist.

I'm sure
the Maryland oystermen felt that the police had plenty of support because they
were usually on the job. They were quick to spot violators. But maybe there was
an isolated case where a fellow was shot; maybe he was fleeing and eluding a
police officer. That sort of thing was not widespread. My thought was that
whenever any shots were fired--which was rare--that they were just warning shots
to stop dredgers from absconding and fleeing the police officers. Virginia
dredgers could see a police boat two or three miles away, and they'd take off
and go into the Virginia tributaries. The oyster police couldn't go in to the
Virginia tributaries. They had no jurisdiction. So they might have fired a shot
to scare them . . .

Anyway, the
Compact wasn't conserving anything because it didn't regulate the fish in the
whole Chesapeake Bay area. We needed to have a sincere, concentrated effort to
conserve the fisheries of the Chesapeake Bay. How can you promote conservation of
just the Bay? How can you promote conservation just by isolating one area to
regulate when you don't have regulation of the entire Chesapeake Bay? I thought
that if we had to have a Compact, then it should include the entire area that
would be affected. If it's in the interest of conservation, then let's approach
it from that viewpoint. So, in an effort to block the 1958 Compact, I tried to
get the whole Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries [included].

I knew
Virginia would never go along with it. They were in favor
of dredging, and of course, we were all opposed to dredging here because it would
deplete the resources. In Virginia there were really no oyster rangers because
most of their tributaries were leased bottoms. And they have big oyster packers
who own hundreds and thousands of acres of bottom land that they'd plant
oysters on. There are no public bars like we have here in Maryland. I really
felt that the Compact was just a political move and that it was the Virginia
packers behind it so they could lease [more] oyster grounds. We were concerned that,
if this Compact were enacted, it was just a subterfuge on the part of Virginia
to try to lease thousands of acres out in the Potomac River to these big
commercial watermen in Virginia. That's what we thought. In the Compact, I thought
we were giving away the rights of our watermen in this County. Eastern Shore men
didn't come over here into the tributaries at that time. Watermen from St.
Mary's County and Charles County were the only ones who were actually using the
Potomac River.

To be
perfectly honest with you, I didn't get much support from anybody in the Tidewater
areas in my opposition of the Compact. I enlisted the support of Bennett Crane,
owner of Mount Victoria over in Charles County. His father had been executive director
of the old State Highway Administration years ago, and Bennett Crane had been a
big lobbyist under Governor Lane [William Preston Lane, 1947-1951]. He had a lot
of contacts and had represented the Grinder Corporation, who did the
engineering on the first Bay Bridge. I enlisted his support, as he had contacts
with some money and with some different people who could really help us. Through
his efforts we had the support of the Baltimore Sun, which was strongly
in opposition to the Compact and supported our efforts for the referendum. Then
we got Hymie Pressman, a little Jewish lawyer in Baltimore who used to file
suits against the City all the time. They called him the Gadfly Lawyer. He was
such an activist and the people's advocate, and he helped us immensely.

We needed
somewhere around 25,000 or 30,000 names to put this bill on referendum, and we
were successful in getting the necessary signers. I was
really very familiar with the bill because I had done a lot of work on it. I'd
read the bill and researched it and I had all these reports of the Atlantic
Fisheries Commission. I knew all about crabs and oysters and stuff, and I
didn't think any of the river should be leased. You have seed oysters, which
you can plant. You have public oyster bars defined by survey. And if there are
areas that are unproductive, you can throw seed oysters there and make it very
productive, unless it's muddy. So, no, I don't think any of the river should be
leased.

People in
this county were also opposed to leasing. And that's the way a great majority of
the watermen felt in this County, because they thought it would infringe upon
their rights to go out, like their forefathers had done,
and catch any oysters they wanted anywhere. Anything that interfered with their
livelihood, they were opposed to. What would happen to the independent watermen
when the packers went and dredged up their own leased beds and had all the
supplies they need? There weren't many jobs available here in the 1950s and
1960s. I can remember when the area iced up
around 1960, and we had large government boats that came down through
Leonardtown and gave flour, butter, rice and staples to watermen in the County because
they couldn't earn a living. I would say that, without knowing, 90% of the watermen
with tonging licenses signed that petition to place the bill on referendum--not
only from this County but from the Eastern Shore, too. The people who were
actually involved and knew about it were opposed to it. It's our river, why
should we give it to Virginia? Why should Marylanders under this bill be taken
to Virginia courts and tried in the State of Virginia [headquarters of the bi-state
commission]? They wouldn't even prosecute their own dredgers.

So I made
what I thought was a very good speech to the people; I was telling them what they
wanted to hear; the Compact was nothing but a leasing bill, nothing but a dredging
bill. It doesn't do anything to protect the fish. It doesn't do anything for conservation.
I got interrupted because they were all clapping and applauding.

Then B. got
up and spoke in opposition to the Compact, and he didn't know anything about
it, but he basically said, “Oh, those Virginians, you know, they think
differently than we do here in Maryland. Why, you know they don't go to a bar
room and get a drink, they buy it by the bottle, they drink the whole bottle,
and then they treat the Potomac River like a cesspool, they throw everything
in.” And he was just wonderful. When it was over, S. came up to me and said, “That
was quite a nice speech you made, but you're no match for that professional
con-man, B.” (Laughs) He was just
terrific; he didn't even know what he was talking about, but they all clapped after
every word he said.

When we had
the hearings in Annapolis on the bill, Judge McWilliams presented his side. I would
say we had 2,500 watermen that packed the House of Delegate's chambers, from
all over the state. When the bill was on referendum, we almost won the
state. I think we were 20,000 or 25,000 votes ahead until we went to the vote
from the last county, which was Baltimore County. We lost that 40,000 or 50,000
votes there, and so we lost the referendum by about 20,000 votes. Now, I feel that
everyone was misguided, that's all. I don't feel any resentment, you know, it's
a legislative battle. Just like when we try a case. You do the best you can and
if you lose, you lose.

I think the
Compact is probably one of the worst things that's ever happened to Maryland. King
Charles granted Lord Baltimore the Potomac River and everything north of the
Potomac River, which included parts of West Virginia, and Pennsylvania and Delaware.
We've lost Washington, we've lost parts of West Virginia, we've lost Delaware, we've
lost parts of the Eastern Shore, Pennsylvania. They were taken from us. In addition,
the Compact was a departure from the past in that all rules and regulations
were now made by a commission which sits in the State of Virginia, whereas the
legislature of Maryland used to pass the laws. When they first set up the commission, John Parran from Charles County was on it, but there was no one
from St. Mary's County on that commission until Jack Russell was appointed, I
think. I don't know who's on it now. It's our river and yet the Commission
offices have always been in Virginia. The director is a Virginian, and I don't
think Maryland has its representation. It's our river, and we used to have the
right to regulate it, but we don't any more. I think it's proven the Compact
hasn't really been good for the area. You don't see many oystermen out in the
Potomac River anymore. I guarantee Roy Thompson will tell you there aren't many
oystermen out there like there used to be. I go to Sheepshead Bar and different
places, and I used to see 30, 40 boats up in the Wicomico River. So, no, I don't
think the Compact has been good, and certainly I don't think it's accomplished
what they led us to believe it would.

There's a lot that could and should be done, but you're
going to antagonize the few watermen left. You have a lot of recreational boats
now that interfere with them. It goes back to my story of Dick Arnold. Ever
hear of Dick Arnold? Dick Arnold used to be a County Commissioner and he worked
on the State Highway Administration. He was like old Senator Claghorn, who
always had a story to tell. Back in the 1950s we had 17 haul seine rigs and we
had 170 people working on those boats, and I can remember we'd stopped in a bar
coming down the road, had a couple of beers, and a bunch of these watermen were
in there. Dick Arnold had his red hair flapping and said, "Those damn sports
fishermen are trying to take over the Potomac River. They're not interested in
the fishermen or commercial watermen, but I can tell you one thing: God picked
as his disciples twelve commercial watermen. He didn't pick any sports fishermen.
What's good enough for Jesus is good enough for Dick Arnold." (Laughs)

The
watermen, I know what a hard life they lead. You see them go out there in these
small boats, and it's rough, and it's freezing. They get up early and they
don't get much money for what they do now because there are no oysters. But
they didn't used to get much money for their work, either. It's just a wonderful
group of people. Very independent.

You'll
never see it again in St. Mary's County. All the bars were like social clubs. They'd
come over to Captain Sam's. They'd sell their oysters and at two o'clock in the
afternoon, there would be 40, 50 of them in there. All over the County it would
be like that. We had Charlie Davis down at Wynne he had 100 plus some people
employed picking crabs. That's a bad way to make a living, but at least it was
a living. People have gotten really soft. They don't realize the difficult
times we used to have down here.

These
County roads, they're blacktop. When I grew up, they were mud. They weren't
even graveled, these County roads. And all these side roads in Leonardtown were
dirt. There weren't any cars.

I remember
asking my father, I said, "Things must have been pretty bad in the Depression."
He said, "No, it wasn't. Nobody had any money before the Depression, nobody
had any money during the Depression, nobody had any money after the Depression."
(Laughs)